Brown, Blue, Brown on Blue (For Mark Rothko)

Bernhard Günter has acknowledged Morton Feldman as an influence, so it’s no surprise that he is also enraptured by the paintings of Mark Rothko. This album consists of a single 39-minute piece that rises and falls, emerging from and returning to silence. When there’s something happening, it’s often a wavy, ill-defined sound like strings heard from underwater or horns practicing in a basement three buildings over, and it only lasts for a minute or so, long enough to register but not long enough for a pattern to emerge, not at this glacial pace. And anyhow, there are no patterns. As in Feldman, there are simple ideas and variations thereof, but there’s no big picture — the bigness (a single 39-minute piece) is the meaning. Turn it on, play it just loud enough that it’s clearly audible, and let yourself drift away with it.